#47 Havasu Falls
Located in Arizona and a short distance from the Grand Canyon, lies Havasu Falls. Havasu and Mooney Falls are on Navajo land and have become the main source of income for the Havasu Baaja Indians.
Stripped of their land in 1882, the tribe was forced to live on a reservation which consisted of 518 acres. In 1975, Congress finally reallocated 185,000 acres of their original hunting grounds. The loss of their economic base along with confinement on the reservation took a toll on their culture. To day, only 450 Havasu Baaja Indians live in Supai and they rely on tourism from their beautiful homeland to support their way of life.
Photography of Mooney and Havasu Falls is very difficult, especially since both falls are generally in deep shade and the high cliffs receive full sun to each side. To further complicate this latitude of film exposure, I shoot nothing but slide film which has a very narrow margin for error. For this image of Havasu Falls, I used a polarizer to reduce glare; a graduated filter to balance the bottom of the falls and cropped the top of the image so overexposure would not be so prevalent... enjoy!
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